


Baby, We're Going Up

by Lizzen



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzen/pseuds/Lizzen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You need to run a DNA test on that kid, Bones," Jim says. "She is way too cool to be yours."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby, We're Going Up

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone needs a little Joanna McCoy in their life. The origins of this fic were written in 2010 and never published; revamped now in 2016 on the eve of STB. 
> 
> thx to tris for a beta and rawles and carrze for a thumbs up in 2010, thx to sloane for making fun of me writing kidfic, thx to imry for waving many brightly colored flags at me when I said I was going to finish it.

Two years into the five-year mission, a twelve year old girl beams aboard the _USS Enterprise_ after the captain of the aforementioned ship wages three favors with certain top Starfleet brass and signs more paperwork in a day than he usually does in a year. 

After all, he has to spoil his boyfriend now and then. To keep it interesting; to keep him. 

Joanna McCoy travels light with just one suitcase for a month's visit and surveys the transporter room like a little queen, her stance solid. Unlike either of her parents, she is not afraid of space travel. 

"Ma'am," Jim says, saluting her. "Welcome to my ship." 

She looks him over carefully. "Captain." 

" _Jim_."

And she looks behind him. 

"Hi, daddy," she says, says to a father she's not seen in five years other than over the holo. Her eyes are very bright.

*  
"You need to run a DNA test on that kid, Bones," Jim says. "She is way too cool to be yours."

*  
Jim gets her away from Bones as quick as possible for ice cream in the mess. 

She's a little lady McCoy, sitting primly in her chair and eating ice cream with small, dainty bites. She details out the differences between synthesized mint chocolate chip ice cream and the kind she gets at the historical Blue Bell factory shop in Brenham. Not unkindly; cream and sugar are at a premium at her age no matter the source. 

He has nothing but respect for the five feet of southern charm. 

"Jim," she says, and all of a sudden. "Are you going to be my stepdad?" 

Her eyes are piercing and Jim recognizes that gaze, recognizes the look of a McCoy on a mission. 

He clears his throat. "Would you like that?"

Joanna leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. "I already have a stepfather." She breathes in, with an appraising look. "He's really boring. Tells me to eat vegetables. That sort of thing." 

Jim flashes for a moment on the day he realized that the guy coming over all the time to see his mom was going to stay, was going to live with them, wasn't ever going to leave. A brief sensation of cold, clammy fear rushes over him before he remembers himself.

She says: "He's nice and whatever. But what about you? Are you boring?"

Jim raises his eyebrow. "Kid, you have no idea."

*  
Jim wonders if Bones is going to murder him. The options include slow and painful, or quick and painful. Or potentially he'll just be berated to death.

“She’s my only daughter, Jim, and you took her out there in the black on some goddamn joyride. And for what, to see a FERENGI MARKETPLACE. She could have been KIDNAPPED, oh god, she could have been—Do you KNOW what Ferengi do to slave women? She’s TWELVE, goddamn it Jim! How could you—“

Joanna stands very straight behind her father, and the earrings on her newly pierced ears shimmer in the light. Her smile is broad and Jim tries his hardest not to mirror it. For Bones' sake.

*  
Bones is giving him the silent treatment, so Jim throws a small party in the officer’s mess for Joanna. She arrives early in her new Bajoran dress looking pretty as sunshine and a wee bit nervous. “Thank you,” she says to him, her arms circling him first and then her face presses against his chest.

Something in his heart thuds, and he knows now that he loves two McCoys more than anything, maybe even more than this bucket of bolts of a ship.

It’s late when Bones arrives, and after giving his daughter a perfunctory hug (she’s busy chattering at Chekov about the latest pop music from Andoria), he flops down on the bench next to Jim.

"Party crasher." Jim smiles and hopes it's his most winning smile.

Bones doesn’t answer, but he does put his arm around him after a moment. 

Joanna looks over at them, midway through her tirade against the Vulcan lute player being added to The Tellertite Brothers, and she looks content.

*  
She and Janice Rand are very quickly best friends, if only because Janice knows all the gossip and she promises to teach Joanna how to do an elaborate hair braid. 

Bones is sitting across from Jim in his quarters, drinking his second cup of coffee and reading the latest newswave, when they hear Joanna squeal from the bathroom. “Come see, come see!”

Jim’s first up to look in at his yeoman and Bones’ daughter smiling like idiots in front of the mirror. Janice is neatly finishing the complex plait around Joanna’s head. "Oh, it's like a crown," the girl whispers. 

Then: "I wonder if Pavel will notice me in my grown up hair. I'll have to act extra grown up today!"

Behind him, Bones clears his throat. "Pav- _Lieutenant_ Chekov?"

"Yes," and the way she says _yes_ is filled with a longing that drills a strange and angry furor in Jim's heart. Blinking, he turns around to face Bones and mouths, "Chekov?"

Bones tilts his head to one side, considering this. 

Very soon after, Chekov finds himself assigned to some very lengthy shifts and a severely painful physical.

*  
"MoVas ah-kee rustak!" she pronounces loudly and Uhura claps her hands together. 

Jim leans back, impressed. 

"Your diction is perfect, but push more from the diaphragm this time," Uhura says. "Klingons expect women to be firm, unyielding, like the Empress Lukara." 

"Have you met a Klingon before?"

"Yes, and they were very scary."

Joanna looks up at her with wide eyes. "I want to meet a Klingon." She opens her mouth and bellows out the Klingon phrase, and she beams when Uhura finally gives her a smile. 

("Why the obsession with Klingons? They're terrifying," Jim asks later.

Bones grins. "You haven't met her mother.")

*  
Spock is teaching her three dimensional chess. Joanna is a good student but very chatty. 

"I don't know whether I should get bangs or not. But Vulcan fashion is so in style right now."

Appraising her with a careful look, Spoke says, "Aesthetically speaking, your face would better suited to long, straight hair without bangs; however, I understand the cultural importance of style and trends for human females of your age. If you would like, I will cut your hair in the Vulcan way."

"What would Lieutenant Chekov think?"

Spock raises his eyebrow at her first and then at Jim. Jim hopelessly shrugs.

"I believe everyone would find you beautiful no matter what you do to your hair."

A veritable picture of her father: Joanna sets her chin stubbornly and rolls her eyes.

*  
A tone at his door wakes him up from light sleep and there is Joanna in her nightdress, clutching a blanket. 

“Uh?” he says intelligently.

“I had a nightmare.” She looks pale. 

(The paperwork says Joanna is to stay with Doctor McCoy in his quarters, but Jim put her in the Ambassadorial Suite because twelve year old girls should be treated in style.

And Jim and Bones may have been together a year, but the doctor ain’t a cuddler; he likes his own space and sleeping alone on occasion. Plus there is some vague semblance of decorum to uphold. Vaguely.)

“I’ll get your dad,” Jim says.

“I don’t think my dad would be good at this sort of thing,” she says, looking at the floor and fidgeting a little.

There’s a softness in his chest that flutters. “Joanna,” and he gets on his knees in front of her. “Your dad is great at this sort of thing.” 

She looks unsure and clings a little tighter to her blanket. “Okay.”

Later, Bones is tucking her into his bed and gruffly saying “I love you” to the sleepiest of little girls and Jim is biting his lip and counting this as a win/win/win. 

*  
One week of her visit is left, and Joanna spends every moment she can taking advantage of her limited freedom to roam the _Enterprise_. 

(“Can I sit in the chair?” “No.”) 

She gets lost for hours in the Jefferies tubes exploring, so Jim puts her to work with little errands here and there. Joanna takes to his mischief like a tribble to grain.

Bones stops him more than once in the hallways (in the bridge, in medical bay, in his quarters) to discuss the finer points of parenting. The discussion usually ends the same way: with Bones shaking his head in frustration and Jim grinning before stealing a kiss. 

*  
Jim stops grinning when the Klingons board his ship; beams of red and green fly past him from all directions and he blocks everything from his mind but the survival of his crew and his ship. The klaxon wail rings in his ears, and he quickly calculates how many hostiles could have slipped through their shields and where the safest places a twelve year old child could hide in a starship. 

Later: he’s waking up in sickbay, sticky from sweat and Klingon blood and a small hand is tightly holding his. She gasps when she sees his eyes fluttering open, and her eyes are wet. 

Two familiar hands clutch his shoulders and he looks up to see Bones, looming over him with dark circles under his eyes. "Is she okay?" Jim asks.

"The ship’s fine," Bones says. "You saved her."

Jim shakes his head, it’s not what he meant. And he looks at Joanna. "Oh sweetheart," he whispers. She clutches his hand tighter. 

Relieved, he waits a moment before: "You’re not going to tell your mother about this, are you?"

Her eyes are tightly closed as she lets out a peal of laughter.

*  
While Jim does paperwork at Bones' desk, Joanna spends quality time with her dad in sickbay, helping him organize a case of mismatched vials ("Extremely dangerous," Bones says in all seriousness; but Jim recognizes them as placebos and mild pain killers). 

"I like looking up at the stars and thinking about my dad being out there, exploring new worlds and new civilizations," she says. 

"You can still see the stars in Houston?" he asks. 

She shakes her head. "Not really, but we have a ranch west of the Austin corridor. You can still see stars out there."

"That's nice."

"I think I'm going to be a xenobiologist when I grow up and live on a starbase," she says easily, handing Bones a maroon vial. "It's nice out here in the black."

"It’s dangerous out here," he says, almost absently. 

She’s quiet for a moment, her feet swinging back and forth under her chair. 

"Dad," she whispers but loud enough for Jim to hear. "Are you going to marry the Captain?"

He drops the vial and it shatters on the floor. She peers nervously down at the maroon-spattered floor and then back up at her father, who looks remarkably pale. 

"I'll take that as a maybe?" she says.

*  
The morning of her departure, they have breakfast in Jim's quarters, and she's quieter than usual, and less apt to go off on her usual chatty monologues about the latest holovid series she’s watching. 

"I'm going to miss you, kid," Jim says, laying it out there.

She makes a face. "You're about to have a million, billion adventures in space. I just have middle school."

He tries hard, really hard, to keep a serious, sober face as he nods. 

(Bones hides a smile as he drinks his coffee.)

Later, he looks away when Bones hugs her for the last time in the private quietness of his quarters. He doesn’t want to interrupt, doesn't want to be part of something sacred.

And he thinks of warm arms that could have wrapped around him as a boy, and resolutely decides not to think about it at all. 

*  
Half of the Enterprise's crew shows up to bid Joanna McCoy adieu, and this time, her arms are full of suitcases and bags filled with new treasures. Jim hugs her just a moment too much and she gives him a smile that warms him to his toes.

"Take care of my dad," she says, and it's gutting. It's a terrible injustice that he gets Leonard McCoy and this sweet slip of a girl doesn't. 

"Yes ma'am," he swears and she nods. 

"It's time, Captain," Scotty says.

Moving away to stand next to Bones, he's surprised when the doctor frantically seeks out and grasps his hand, like a man drowning.

He looks at him, and is surprised at Bones's calm face and the serene look focused on his child. Jim squeezes his hand tight.

"Mr. Scott," Joanna says, "If you would please, sir!"

Jim feels a tightness in his chest as she becomes transparent, white, and then absent.

*  
Bones is pale, exhausted after. Jim should let him be, but he's now down to just one McCoy and he's an addict. 

"Thank you, Jim," he says, fidgeting. 

"I'm sure you'll make it up to me." Jim smiles. 

"Yeah, I plan to," Bones says with a searing look followed by a searing kiss. 

Jim pulls away, just a little, just so that their foreheads are touching. They breathe together as one. The corner of Jim's mouth slides up. "So, what do you think? Are you going to marry the captain?"

Bones makes a choked up sort of noise. "I'm—"

"You're my favorite person. No, my second favorite person now. And as such, I think you—" Jim stutters over the word because _golly_. "I think you should."

"I'm—" Bones repeats.

"I'd be honored if you made an honest man of me. For Joanna's sake."

"I'm—" 

"This living out of wedlock is a bad example for her, and I, for one—"

Bones silences him with a kiss, long and firm; and Jim was really out of things to say anyway.

*  
"Joanna, hi," he says over the holonet. He flutters his left hand, featuring a latinum ring. "I got this badass ring on Orca IV, thought you'd like it."

She giggles, her face the picture of delight. "Now you can tell me I have to eat my vegetables."

Jim shakes his head. "No, no way am I making you eat vegetables, kid. I don't even eat vegetables."

Joanna covers her face with her hands. "God, I'm so happy," she says, and millions, and millions of light-years away, Jim can only agree.


End file.
